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Friday, July 20, 2007

Dual nationals return to play for the Phillipines

Filipino-British Chad Alesna Gould now regrets he didn't represent his South East Asian homeland in the ASEAN Football Championship qualifying round and the AFC Challenge Cup last year. “It was a very down moment for me. Everyday, the lads text me that I should have been there and it was very sad for me,” said Gould during a press conference announcing his football clinic at Krua Thai. “There is nothing like the feeling of playing my favorite sport and coming out in the field wearing the national colors. There is something magical about it and I missed that feeling that year,” he added. Gould last donned the national colors in the 2005 South East Asian Games as the Republic of the Philippines U-23 team striker.

He is now looking forward to representing RP again in the Challenge Cup in March next year alongside former reserves of English Premier League club Chelsea, Philip and James Younghusband. However, he admitted that he found it "was strange at first playing on the kind of surface and the facilities" in the Philippines as compatred to England.

Gould is disappointed the Philippines did not register for the qualifying rounds of the 2010 World Cup. “We ranked very low in the world, maybe 191st. But if you saw our performance, you would think twice. We beat Cambodia and Brunei, which are ranked higher than us,” he said, adding that the RP team needs to be exposed to more international events. “There are a lot of us Fil-foreigners in the team. It is too difficult to have training sessions regularly and too expensive to have us travel back and forth. The way forward is to play more games and to train together,” he told the Sun Star Cebu.